The Elephant in the Room
by trilliumg
Summary: Shepard is forced to divulge a personal secret.


She'd known it would happen eventually, working with him in such close quarters. She just hadn't known it would be so soon.

At least he'd waited until they were alone to bring it up. If two round metal stools at Flux counted as "alone."

As she waited for him to order his customary single beer, she stared into her glass and pondered her life. Three hundred years ago, most New Yorkers traveled by horse-drawn carriage and didn't even have lightbulbs. Yet here she was, futzing about in another part of the Milky Way, flying a spaceship, scouting out entire planets in the time it used to take to fly from Dallas to Frankfurt. Insane, is what it was.

At least vodka hadn't changed much. Now that…that was a good burn.

She lowered her glass and looked over at the bartender. "Another, when you have a minute."

"Sure thing, Commander." To her surprise, he stopped mid-pour to fix her a second drink.

Curious. People were starting to recognize her.

Kaidan picked up his bottle and jerked his head toward the back. "Find someplace to talk?"

She swallowed self-consciously, then nodded. Why did this moment have to keep happening? It was strange, really. Given her position and the way military gossip flowed, everyone in the goddamned Alliance fleet should have known about it by now.

They made their way across the dance floor, through swaying bodies spotted with colored, pulsing lights, and she considered the man in front of her. He was fine, there was no doubt about that. In many senses of the word. A fine soldier, with twelve special commendations, as Chakwas had mentioned when Shepard had brought up his name. A fine lieutenant—quiet, seemingly always in control, who seemed to know just when to talk and when to shut up. A fine thinker, if his insights about the Council and suspicions about his past were anything to go by.

And then there was the way he looked in his gear. She tried not to stare as she followed him through the crowd. _Damn, black is his color…_

_Cut it out._

She'd approached this whole thing with her head, like always. She meant to keep it that way.

He'd found a spot in a darkened corner. He squeezed behind the little round cocktail table, took a seat, and beckoned her over. It seemed he intended to sit beside her. Not across from her. Not the way two soldiers would sit. She dropped down beside him, careful not to get too close. No one in Flux needed to get the wrong idea.

But there he was, already leaning in so he could hear. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah…why?" Even here in the back, she had to raise her voice over the thump-thump-thump of the music. Coming here to discuss this was probably a bad idea.

"That's how my mother always sat," he said. "Right up on the edge, away from the back of the sofa. Like she might need to sprint at any moment to save a burning pot roast."

Shepard laughed and sat back. Damn him for noticing. "You don't miss a thing, do you?"

"I guess not," he said sheepishly, and looked away for a moment. "I'll apologize for being blunt, Commander. But is there…something you want to talk about? If not, just forget I said anything."

Wow. He was always diplomatic, but he was _really_ pussy-footing around. She cocked her head. "Normally, Lieutenant, I'd say something smart. Like, 'What business is it of yours?' or 'Blunt? You haven't said a word yet.' But yeah. I know what you're talking about."

"I'm sorry, I just…it's been eating at me for days."

"Morbid curiosity?" She gave a wry laugh.

By the look on his face, the joke was a mistake.

_Shit. Why am I so awful at this?_

The unspoken question hung in the air like haze after a firefight. How many times was she going to have to tell this story?

"Yes," she said, looking out across the dance floor. "Yeah. I did."

She lay her left arm across the table and slowly pulled up her sleeve a couple of inches. The keloid was clean, straight, surgical-looking. In typical fashion, she'd meant business. These days, people really had to be paying attention to notice it. The angry red had eventually faded. But it had taken years.

He recoiled like he'd been smacked in the face. "I…I'm sorry, Commander."

Reflexively, she pulled her sleeve back down. A lot of people couldn't handle seeing it.

There was another question in his eyes. She waited silently, until it became clear he wasn't going to ask.

"It wasn't Akuze," she volunteered. "It was…the first."

He nodded, almost imperceptibly. "Your family…"

That wound was so old, so deep, she couldn't even cry over it anymore. Sometimes she tried, though. Once in a while, when she was alone in her cabin, lying on her bed with a half-empty bottle, she tried not to let that connection die. But they were so distant now. Like images in a movie of people she'd never met. She played the film over and over, but it never changed. The same scenes, the same burned-in images, the same words. It all felt so threadbare now, there was nothing left to wring out. So it rarely worked.

But damn if his tone wasn't getting her close. Why was that? _Someone shows you some sympathy, you feel sorrier for yourself than you have in years…_

"I was sixteen," she said. "I lost everything. Everyone. If I hadn't ended up in the military…" She took a gulp of her drink, then went on, looking down at the table. "It was tempting again though, after Akuze. The easy way out, you know? Magnetic. Almost like a drug. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. Maybe I was already too scarred over. Those people, they were my colleagues, my friends…but in the end, it was nothing like losing my family. Plus, I'd learned all about survivor's guilt by then."

From the corner of her eye, she saw him reach awkwardly for her hand, as if he'd been tempted to trace her scar, then had thought better of it. Was he making a move?

Nope. A quick, friendly squeeze. That was all.

"I'd never say I know what you went through," he said. "But I've been through some dark times myself. Not everyone can understand that. Any time you want to talk, Commander, just let me know."

Dark times? Kaidan, the Boy Scout? What could he _possibly_ have done? He was absolutely right, though. Not everyone did know. Some people thought depression meant two weeks of feeling blue after a failed project or a bad review. They had _no freaking idea_.

But he did. The next time they had a quiet moment alone, she was going to find out why.

Suddenly, it was like someone had lifted a fifty-pound pack from her shoulders. She felt a ridiculous grin coming on. She was almost giddy. Maybe she'd just float away, up into the ceiling tiles…

"Thanks, Lieutenant. Same goes for you." She swallowed the last of the vodka. "But hey, I'd, uh…appreciate your not telling anyone."

Was that annoyance flitting across his face? Actually, had she ever even seem him angry?

"Of course not," he said tightly. "Your secret's safe with me."

"Yeah," she said. "'Til my sleeves ride up again when I'm gunning down some Geth." She leaned her head back against the banquette, then turned to look at him. "Guess we'd better get back to it, huh, Lieutenant?"

He nodded. "Aye aye, Commander."

~oOoOoOoOoOoOo~

She dreamed about them that night. Her sister's face when she saw the Minnie Mouse cake Shepard had made for her eleventh birthday party. Her brother laughing maniacally as he rammed his go-kart into hers the day after his high-school graduation. The way they'd all gotten down on the floor and played together for hours when her father had brought home Max, their first puppy. These were the images that never left, the ones that were all so worn through.

She rubbed her eyes and reached for the glass of water on her nightstand. Maybe it was finally time to search the network backups. She'd never wanted to, afraid that everything she found would eventually get "worn out." But everything she had was worn out, now.

She could ration it.

The anniversary was coming up in two months.

Yeah. It was time.


End file.
